National Online Teacher Training Initiative
Abstract
In the increasingly interconnected and globalized world of the 21st century, promoting proficiency in diverse world languages and cultures is a national priority. The languages spoken by the majority of the world’s population, however, are not typically taught in U.S. schools: approximately 91 % of students in the United States who study a foreign language at the postsecondary level choose French, German, or Spanish. Only 9% study “less commonly taught languages" such as Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, or Yoruba, among many others. Despite their social, cultural, strategic, or economic importance, these languages are often under-represented and marginalized in the U.S. system of education.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute and the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) were awarded a three-year, $345,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to launch the National Online Less Commonly Taught Languages Teacher Training Initiative, an ambitious project directed by UW-Madison faculty Sally Sieloff Magnan and Antonia Schleicher to improve instruction in these languages by providing better teacher training.
The potential for developing American proficiency in less commonly taught languages is threatened by an extreme shortage of trained teachers at all instructional levels. At the college level, where most instruction in these languages currently takes place, native speakers without teaching preparation or experience are often recruited to give courses. At UW Madison, the departments provide initial professional development and supervision of these novice teachers, but with the diversity of languages involved, it remains difficult to offer specific methodological training. Many institutions nationally cannot provide even this basic professional development. Because there are few instructional materials in many of these languages, these novice instructors are often also required to develop curricula and programs from the ground up. This situation contrasts sharply with what happens in French, German, or Spanish, where commercial publishers are heavily invested in material preparation and where academic departments have developed more extensive systems of professional development and support for new instructors.
In its first phase, the National Online Teacher Training Initiative will develop a series of online teaching methodology courses for postsecondary instructors. The courses will address topics such as theories of language teaching and learning, and the role of culture in language learning. Through video-based exemplars of classroom teaching practices, novice teachers will reflect on teaching practices of model instructors, as well as on their own practices, attitudes, and beliefs about teaching and learning languages. By taking these online courses, novice teachers will thus be mentored by “master teachers” affiliated with the NCOLCTL and UW-Madison. Through the internet, they will enter a new professional community of practice that will nurture their professional development.
Teacher development at the postsecondary level responds to an immediate and long-term national needs: immediately to improve and sustain college courses in a greater variety of world languages, and long-term to prepare methodology experts who will prepare teachers in now less commonly taught languages for the secondary and elementary levels.
The courses developed for this project will be offered through the UW-Madison and made available to educational programs and institutions throughout the United States. The NCOLCTL will offer a certificate of completion for the courses; this certificate will form the basis of a national certificate of instruction for post-secondary LCTL teachers, currently under consideration by NCOLCTL
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